


Patterns In The Ashes

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Family Angst, Gen, Missing Scene, Parallels, Set between 3a and 3b, between Peter and Kate, conflicted feelings, fighting leads to accidental and sort of reluctant bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-03
Updated: 2018-08-03
Packaged: 2019-06-20 19:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15541692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: She had seen the question on Scott’s face sometimes, on Stiles’ and Isaac’s, just a little bit of bafflement whenever they smelled that whiff of grief on her even as she said in words that the world was better off without Kate in it. They didn’t understand how Allison could still miss her. They didn’t get it and probably never would.Derek, though. In a broken whisper he asked himself the same question she had asked herself every day since that night.“Why can’t I hate him enough?”Allison blinked against wetness and smiled; that hurt too. “Because you love him.”





	Patterns In The Ashes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zelos](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zelos/gifts).



> this fic fought me every step of the way but i am so glad i wrote it. even if it was hell to try and _tag_ , the complexity and subtlety of the shared experience between these two is both utterly fascinating and completely devastating to me in the best way possible, and i just really needed to get this out of my head. 
> 
> so for clarity's sake: this takes place after the end of 3A but before the start of 3B. the effects of the ice bath sacrifice are already starting to take hold but haven't really solidified yet.

* * *

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Running was easy. It was simple. It was a mechanical process that never changed, no matter where she was running to or what she was running from. Allison could rely on the steady beat of her feet on the ground, the burn in her muscles, the whistle of air in her lungs, the way the scenery blurred as it flew past.

If she ran fast enough, then she didn’t have to see the trees around her. And if she didn’t see the trees, then she wouldn’t see anything lurking in them. Especially anything that wasn’t actually there to start with.

She wasn’t there. Allison _knew_ she wasn’t really there. So she threw herself down the forest path even faster than before, fully aware that she was pushing herself too hard and risking a broken ankle if she so much as slipped on a wet leaf, but she didn’t care. Anything to get out from under that feeling of being watched by a ghost.

One footfall after another. Arms pumping at her sides. Headphones in, music turned up loud, and labored breathing even louder.

Not loud enough, apparently. At least, not loud enough to block out the sound of splintering wood.

Allison stumbled to a halt, catching herself on the nearest tree. She tugged an earbud out, music paused, and finally made herself look around. She wasn’t as familiar with the woods as her friends who had grown up in the preserve, but she’d run the trails often enough to recognize most of them. She’d come further than she usually did—further than she’d intended to, honestly.

Another crash, and a hoarse shout. The sound of it echoed through the trees around her, so it couldn’t be far.

She hesitated, breath still coming hard. She had heard a lot of screaming in recent months, enough to know that it was damn near impossible to tell if it was from anger or exertion or pain. A scream was a scream, a shout was a shout, and crashing like that usually meant that someone was being attacked.

There was a flicker of movement over her shoulder, just barely out of her line of sight. A flash of blonde hair. A chill crawled up Allison’s back that had nothing to do with the way sweat was cooling on her overheated skin and her fingers itched for a string to pull, a bow to nock, a target she could actually hit.

But there was nothing there.

_She wasn’t there._

The next smash of wood had her running again because she couldn’t just ignore it. Her dad may have been able to lock up his guns and call himself retired, hide away and let others handle their own problems, but Allison couldn’t do that. She wouldn’t do that, not if she could help even one person.

The Hale House was equal parts menacing and pathetic, like a horror movie set where some hapless PA had turned all the lights on mid-shoot. It was definitely where the commotion was coming from though, and Allison hesitated again at the bottom of the front steps.

Even one person, she told herself. Even _that_ person.

More boards splintering, and how was the house still standing at all? Allison shook off the last of her doubt and charged into the ruin. She half-expected to find Derek climbing out of a hole smashed in the floorboards, dazed and snarling, while some monster bore down on him gnashing its teeth.

But she didn’t find that.

There was no monster, not even any other werewolves. It was just Derek, alone, in the living room of his burned down house. He wasn’t even shifted. His face was entirely human as he grabbed hold of the nearest piece of furniture—what looked like the remains of a couch—and threw it with all his considerable might. It crashed down on the far side of the room and Allison flinched as the floorboards creaked and split under the impact.

Derek did it again, and again, until the couch was in tiny pieces and there was nothing left to smash, each act of violence accompanied by another of those shouts that sounded like they were ripped from his throat. Finally he stood still, shoulders hunched and heaving, un-clawed hands balled into fists at his sides.

He kicked the nearest piece of debris as hard as he could, sending it bouncing off the wall only to land right back at his feet. He stared down at it for a long minute and Allison held her breath, waiting for another explosion of rage, but it didn’t come. Instead he collapsed like his strings had been cut, knees hitting the floor with a painful thud, and he shoved boards and torn and charred sofa cushions roughly out of the way until he could twist around to sit back against the wall.

With his knees pulled up to his chest and his head down, he looked so much smaller.

He didn’t see her until he tilted his head back to drag the back of his hand under his nose with a sniff. It was a miracle he hadn’t heard her coming or caught her scent, but Allison supposed he’d been a little preoccupied with destroying his own childhood home.

He noticed her now. His eyes shot open wide, all of him tensing like he was ready to take off running at the slightest hint of a threat. Like her mere presence was a threat.

A few weeks ago, it might’ve been. No, it would’ve been. Back before the bank vault, before Scott had been forced to come clean, there would’ve been only one reason for Allison to be here and it wouldn’t have been good for Derek.

But that was before, and this was after. Now she didn’t know why she was here. Why she was _still_ here even though it was clear that Derek wasn’t in danger from anyone except maybe himself. She could’ve left. She could’ve snuck out while Derek was trashing the place and he would never have even know she’d been there.

Now she was pinned down by his gaze, sharp and distrustful and startlingly red-rimmed, and she really wished she had escaped when she’d had the chance.

“I was just running,” she stammered out, once the silence had drawn out for far too long. “I heard the noise. Thought I’d investigate, see if anyone needed...help.”

“Help,” Derek repeated. That one word was entirely uninflected and yet still managed to convey a world of skepticism and disdain.

Allison flushed. Her fingers clenched tight around the headphones in her hand and she said, “It sounded like someone was being attacked.”

“And you wanted to help,” Derek said again.

“Yes. _Help,_ ” Allison bit out.

“Since when do you care about what happens to me?” Derek asked with a sneer. The expression didn’t have its usual punch, probably because he was slumped on the floor and his voice was rough from the abuse he’d put it through already, but the accusation still landed somewhere in Allison’s chest that was raw and angry.

“I don’t,” she snapped. She didn’t leave though.

Part of her wanted to stomp out the front door and let it slam shut behind her, take off running again, leave Derek here to wallow in whatever his fucking problem was on his own. It wasn’t like Derek wanted her help in the first place. He had every reason to be looking at her that way, like she was a pipe bomb with a timer counting down fast.

Except she’d already blown everything to hell and back long before now, and Derek and his pack had been the ones to catch all the shrapnel. It was no wonder he would turn his nose up at the entire concept of her helping anyone, much less him.

She should leave him alone. It would be better for both of them if she just turned around and went back to her running, back to the simple mechanical task and the steady ground beneath her feet and the blur of trees flying past.

Except there was a shape out of the corner of her eye. A half-seen figure waiting for her just outside the door, just around every corner, always hovering with a smirk and a taunt on those red lips, _waiting_ for Allison to give in and look her in the eye.

She looked around the room instead. She looked at Derek and the mess he had made.

“What were you even doing anyway?” she asked, as if she had any right.

“Redecorating,” Derek said flatly. “What does it look like?”

He pushed himself to his feet and Allison fought the reflexive urge to take a step back, to put distance between them even though they were on opposite sides of the room already. He wasn’t supposed to be a threat. Scott insisted that Derek wasn’t a threat, and theoretically Allison believed him. Her instincts just hadn’t caught up yet.

It helped that, for all that she was invading his territory, he hadn’t made any aggressive move toward her yet. He wasn’t attacking her or throwing her out. He wasn’t even putting much effort into intimidating her into leaving. He just stood there, fists clenching and unclenching on nothing, apparently at loose ends. He wasn’t even watching her like a hawk anymore. The sudden absence of aggression was unsettling.

“Like you’re pissed off,” Allison said. “And you’re channeling it into destroying everything around you, like usual.”

She bit her tongue as soon as the last word rolled off it; that last bit had been a low blow. That wasn’t to say it that it wasn’t true—Derek was practically a wrecking ball in human form—but it was also not the sort of thing she should say out loud to his face if she didn’t want the unbridled rage to make a reappearance. She tensed, ready to make a run for it if she needed to, but Derek didn’t lunge for her. He didn’t snap and snarl or throw it back in her face that he wasn’t the only self-destructive person in the room.

Instead, he let out a puff of breath that might’ve been a pitiful attempt at a laugh, shoulders slumping, and muttered, “Like usual.”

It didn’t sound like he had meant for her to hear it, but she did and it took the accusatory wind right out of her sails. She fell out of her ready stance. She took in Derek’s posture, remembered the red of his eyes and the pitiful little sniff just before he had noticed her presence. For all the violence she had walked in on, Derek really didn’t seem pissed off at all. He looked sad. Defeated.

The closest thing Allison could remember to seeing him like this was when he had carried Erica’s body out of the bank. But as far as she knew, no one had died in the last few days. Unless she was _really_ out of the loop.

“What happened?” she asked before she could think better of it.

All at once, Derek seemed to remember that she was there. His face closed off, shoulders tensed back up, lip lifted in a sneer.

“Nothing that concerns you,” he said and turned his back on her.

Allison couldn’t even bring herself to be offended by the snub because that phrasing meant that _something_ definitely had happened. Considering she was as connected to Scott’s pack as Derek was, she figured it wasn’t likely to be anything to do with them. That didn’t leave many options, mostly just the other Hales. If Peter was causing trouble again, news undoubtedly would’ve found its way to her by now, but she hadn’t heard much about Cora lately. Or anything at all, really, since Cora hadn’t seemed all that invested in her hometown or anyone in it. Allison had been half expecting her to—

“Cora left, didn’t she?” Allison guessed.

For the first time, Derek snarled. He didn’t fully shift or attack, but he flinched like he’d been struck and flashed a mouth full of too-sharp teeth at her. Allison jerked back anyway, suddenly on full alert with adrenaline pounding through her system, reaching for weapons that she wasn’t carrying.

He growled, “Why are you still here?”

The reflexive fear was drowned out by a rush of shame and anger; she was supposed to be strong enough to _not_ be afraid anymore, to quash that instinct to cower and hide. That was the whole point in letting her life be subsumed by this. How dare Derek bring that weakness up in her again? Especially when she had just been feeling _bad_ for him. He didn’t deserve her sympathy.

She ignored the damning question and twisted her headphone cords around her fingers until they went bloodless, half-wishing they were a garrote instead.

“Why did she leave, Derek?” she asked, her tone hard and unforgiving, a little foreign to her own ears. She never used to sound like this. “Did you push her away? Did you throw her out like you did Isaac?”

Derek snarled again, head down now like a bull ready to charge. He still didn’t attack, though the muscles in his arms bulged like he was physically holding himself back, and the show of restraint made Allison’s blood boil as much as anything else.

“Or did she just get tired of you and your macho, drill sergeant bullshit?” Allison went on, watching the way Derek’s eyes flashed cold blue like he couldn’t help himself. It sent a thrill of vicious pleasure through her, sharp as a knife. “Let me guess. Did she run off in the middle of the night like Erica and Boyd?”

All that restrained violence was released in a split second. It was a roar that shook the walls and a blur of motion that ended with Allison slammed back against the railing of the stairs in the entryway, Derek’s clawed hands digging into the fragile wood on either side of her head. Part of Allison acknowledged that she could’ve been dead already. The rest told her to push, to take that cruel knife she had lodged inside her, ram it into Derek’s gut instead, and _twist._

“She did, didn’t she?” Allison panted through the tightness in her throat, the pounding of her heart.

Derek snarled again in warning. His fangs made him lisp just a bit as he said, “Shut up. Just _shut up_ about my sister.”

Allison laughed, a brittle, hysterical thing that had her seeing flashes of blonde hair out of the corner of her eye. “Your sister doesn’t want anything to do with you,” she spat.

The railing creaked and splintered in Derek’s grip, raining wood chips down on her shoulders. “ _You_ don’t get to talk about my family,” he said with a hard shake of his head, jaw clenched almost too tightly to get the words out. “Not you, of all people—”

“She abandoned you,” Allison shouted. “Because you’re a monster. Because you’re a _killer._ ”

“No, because I’m _not!_ ”

The banister finally gave way completely with a shriek of protest, crumbling under Derek’s fingers to leave him grasping at nothing at all. His hands hovered in place for a moment, just over Allison’s heaving shoulders, and Derek stared at them. His wide eyes, no longer ice blue, darted between his fingers and Allison’s face and he swallowed hard.

“Because—because I _can’t._ ”

His voice broke. And then he was gone, out of Allison’s space so quickly that it left her reeling worse than the unstable surface at her back. It was like she had misstepped on the balance beam, teetering on the edge and waiting for a fall that might not come. Without the shouting and the threatening rumble in Derek’s throat, her ears rang and her own labored breathing was far too loud.

There was a shadow just out of sight and Allison could’ve sworn she heard her laugh.

A throb in her fingers reminded her of how tightly she was holding onto her earphones. The cord was cutting off the circulation. Pins and needles crept in as soon as she forced herself to loosen her grip and the buds hit the ground with a hollow clack. They were stark white against the flame-blackened floorboards.

“You can’t what?” Allison heard herself ask when the breathless silence had stretched on too long, when it seemed like Derek was going to do nothing but stand, unmoored and unmoving amid the shambles of what was once his life. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know. “What can’t you do that would make Cora turn her back on you?”

Derek raised his eyes to the ceiling, blinking fast as an incongruous smile found its way onto his face.

“I can’t kill him,” he said, the words hoarse and slow, like the thought was only just now forming. Like he had never expected to say it out loud and didn’t know how. But he didn’t stop, or maybe he couldn’t. “It was never me she wanted,” he admitted with a shake of his head. “She came back for Laura, not for me. But Laura wasn’t here, and I was never the alpha she needed. I _still_ can’t give her what she needs, I can’t— _Jesus,_ why can’t I—”

He scrubbed his hands over his face, dragged fingers roughly through his hair. He didn’t finish his question, but Allison didn’t need him to. She may have missed out on the early days but that didn’t mean she had never been filled in on what had gone down before she’d been in the know.

“Peter,” she said. “Cora wanted you to kill Peter.”

Before she had even finished saying it, Derek was growling again. He aimed a vicious kick at the nearest piece of debris and this time it shattered on impact with the far wall.

“ _He murdered Laura!_ ” Derek snarled. “He murdered his own niece in cold blood, and all Cora wants is justice. And I _should_ be able to give her that. For god’s sake, I already killed him once!”

Allison shivered at the memory. She had been too far away to hear the squelch of ripping flesh as Derek had torn Peter’s throat out, but she had seen the arterial spray, the way Peter’s body had twitched and jerked as he bled out. It had haunted her nightmares just as much as the mass of screaming flame he had become when Allison had fired her arrow and the stench of cooking meat that had seeped into the clothes she’d worn that night. She’d had to throw them away.

Derek was moving now, pacing the floor, looking every bit the caged animal. Allison stayed where she was, watching his sudden frenetic energy from the relative safety of the entryway.

“He deserves it, I know he does,” Derek said, more to himself than to Allison. “He’s an awful person who’s done truly terrible things, and I would be fully justified in putting him in the ground all over again. I should— I should want him dead too. I should hate him as much as she hates him, and I _do._ I _hate_ what he did, but—”

There was a twitch of motion out of the corner of Allison’s eye, just out of sight enough that she knew she shouldn’t look. She knew what would be there. _Who_ would be there. Her presence was enough to make Allison go cold all over, dread tripping down her spine, but underneath that was the ever-present ache, that feeling that maybe _this_ version of her wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe this version was the woman she had thought she’d known instead of the twisted monster she had proven herself to be.

Allison’s throat was tight, her mouth dry. Still she pushed out: “But it’s not enough.”

Derek stopped in his tracks. He looked at her. Something in him looked torn open, raw and flayed, but that hunter’s instinct to take advantage had fled. This was a pain Allison knew, one hidden deep in her chest that she had poked at and poked at like a sore tooth that she couldn’t ignore. The question Derek asked in a broken whisper was one she had asked herself every day since that fight.

“Why can’t I hate him enough?”

Allison blinked against wetness and smiled; that hurt too. “Because you love him.”

Derek’s face crumpled, screwing up against tears of his own, and Allison had never thought the day would come when she would feel the urge to comfort him. But then she had never expected _this._ Maybe she should have. After all, Allison was no stranger to crazy homicidal family members.

She took a shaky breath and stepped forward, slow and hesitant, out of the entryway and into the destroyed living room. Derek wasn’t looking at her anymore, though the tension in his frame made it clear he was aware of her approach. She didn’t get too close—she knew better than to crowd an unstable werewolf—but something in her hated the distance between them that she had so craved earlier.

“He’s your family,” she said with a helpless shrug. “You grew up with him. You might have even looked up to him. He probably gave you piggyback rides and took you to baseball games when you were little. The closest thing you had to a big brother.”

Allison couldn’t help but think of long nights giggling into the phone, listening to her super cool aunt tell her stories of all the fun she was having. The precious visits when Kate would brush her hair and paint her nails. Going to the archery range together, going camping in the summer, seeing Kate in the stands at all her gymnastics meets.

She didn’t know if the relationship Derek had had with his uncle was anything like that. With the interactions she’d had with the man, she found it hard to believe that he could be any sort of positive force in someone’s life. But then, Derek probably thought the same of Kate at this point. She had seen the question on Scott’s face sometimes, on Stiles’ and Isaac’s, just a little bit of bafflement whenever they smelled that whiff of grief on her even as she said in words that the world was better off without Kate in it.

They didn’t understand how Allison could still miss her. They didn’t get it and probably never would.

Derek, though.

“Basketball.”

Allison blinked herself out of the memories. “What?”

“It was—” Derek stopped to clear his throat. “He took me to basketball games. We would shoot hoops on weekends. He snuck me a beer after I made the team.”

“I thought werewolves couldn’t get drunk.”

The corner of Derek’s mouth twitched upward. “He said it was symbolic.”

Allison found herself laughing. The noise startled her in more ways than one. She ducked her head, taking the opportunity to wipe the moisture away from her eyelashes. When she looked up again, Derek had moved away. He leaned back against the wall and slid to sit at the base of it, knees up. It was the same position he had been in when he’d first noticed Allison’s presence.

He looked up at her this time like he had then, but his posture remained loose. He eyed her with just a hint of wariness, waiting to see what she would do, if she would strike now that he had let his guard down.

She didn’t. She tucked a stray hair, escaped from her ponytail, behind her ear. Then she found the nearest wall that wasn’t Derek’s and sat at its base, knees up and arms tucked close against her stomach. Derek watched her wordlessly and she met his steady, assessing gaze until he finally looked away. She found herself the tiniest bit disappointed, but she breathed a little easier when his eyes weren’t on her.

They were quiet for a long time, just sitting alone together. Then:

“Kate taught me how to shoot.”

Allison could see the way Derek’s jaw clenched at the mention of her, but he didn’t interrupt. The tilt of his head said that he was listening.

“It was kind of our bonding thing, you know?” she went on. “We’d go to the range and practice together, then go out for ice cream after, have the girl talk I couldn’t have with my parents. I always looked forward to those days so much. They were some of my favorite memories. Now…”

Allison let her head fall back against the wall with a dull thunk. Her fingernails dug half-moons into her arms, just hard enough to sting.

“Now I don’t know how to think about it. Am I still allowed to remember how happy I was then? And how do I manage that when I know how many people she had already killed by then?”

When he didn’t speak, Allison looked over at Derek. He had his head down, elbows on his knees and hands hanging limply before him.

“I know what Kate did,” she said, seeing the tiny flinch that Derek couldn’t quite hide. “She hurt so many people and I _hate_ her for that. I could never condone anything that she did.” Allison took a deep breath that shook no matter how much she tried to steady herself. “But she was my aunt. Practically my sister. For the longest time, she was my best friend in the world. I loved her so much for so long, and I can’t just make that go away. No matter how much I may want to.”

“What would you do?” Derek asked. “If she were still here?”

A flicker of movement. A flash of blonde hair. A whisper of a laugh.

Allison bit down on _“she is”_ and said, “I don’t know,” because it was true. It was one thing to catch glimpses of a familiar shape in the distance, to feel the spectral presence of something that looked like her and wasn’t. But if she’d had the real Kate, alive and whole, standing before her again—

“I really don’t know,” she said again. “But whatever I did, no matter what it was…” Her fingers, as tight around her arms as they would’ve been around her bow, shook. She couldn’t make them stop. “...I would hesitate.”

Allison could feel Derek’s eyes on her like a hand on the back of her neck, a prickle all down her bare arms. She just stared straight ahead, unfocused, letting the musty room blur and soften around the edges. She thought it lost a little of its tragedy that way.

“I can’t kill him again,” Derek said into the hush. “But I can’t lose Cora either. I can’t just let her go.”

“But you could go with her.”

The suggestion was met with silence. Allison glanced over to see Derek with eyebrows raised. Then his eyes narrowed, a bit of his usual spark making its first appearance.

“Are you just saying that because you want me out of town?”

He sounded more petulant than suspicious and Allison had to purse her lips to stop a grin from escaping. It wasn’t very effective because Derek rolled his eyes, but Allison thought she saw a bit of a smile on his face too. She loosened her grip on herself, wrapping her arms around her legs instead so that she could rest her chin on her knees.

“I could always just kill Peter for you, you know,” she said, mostly kidding. “ _I_ don’t love the guy.”

The look of surprise on Derek’s face was gratifying, but not nearly as much as the _laugh._ A real, genuine laugh that shook his shoulders and showed off a set of perfectly white, human teeth. Maybe it was just the crash that came with too much emotion in too short a time, but the sound was infectious. Allison buried her face in her knees and let all her tension work its way out through a fit of entirely inappropriate giggles.

By the time she looked up, Derek was wiping at his eyes.

“Thanks for the offer,” he said.

“Anytime.”

Allison watched as the last of Derek’s chuckles subsided and the grin slowly slid off his face. She watched the way his eyes flitted around the room, landing on each piece of debris and each scorch mark, and how the ease from just a moment ago disappeared so quickly. In barely a few seconds, he looked so much more like he had when she first got there—sad, worn down, a little lost.

“Really,” she said, more softly than she’d ever said anything to Derek Hale before. “You should go with her.”

This time she didn’t shy away from his gaze. She could see the protest on his lips, the excuses and all the reasons he shouldn’t. She shook her head before he could say any of them.

“You don’t need to be here, Derek. Scott’s the alpha now, and he’s got good control of himself. He’ll be okay. He’ll look out for us and we’ll all look out for him. We’ll be fine.”

Derek’s face was hard to read, or maybe Allison was just bad at reading him. Still, after a few long seconds, he seemed to accept her answer.

“And Peter?”

Allison let a little sharpness sneak into her grin. “You leave Peter here to try his luck with someone who won’t hesitate.”

Derek nodded and there was a wry twist to his lips that said he’d like to see it. He didn’t look dubious at the prospect, or concerned. He didn’t scoff at the idea that Allison could handle herself against Peter. She supposed if there was anyone who knew how dangerous she could be when she put her mind to it, it would be Derek. She just never thought that would earn her respect instead of disdain.

The moment passed when Derek pushed himself off the ground. He hovered there for a moment, shifting on his feet, and Allison was sure that if she had been anybody else he would’ve offered her a hand up. But she wasn’t anybody else. She was her, and Derek was Derek, and they didn’t _do_ this. Any of it. They weren’t enemies, not anymore, but they certainly weren’t friends.

They weren’t anything, really.

It was time to go.

Allison hastily levered herself off the floor unaided. Derek didn’t say anything and she brushed past him on her way to the door, stubbornly ignoring the awkwardness that gripped her now that there was no overwhelming anger to spur her on. She had become so accustomed to that simmering rage lately, especially where Derek was concerned. She wasn’t sure what to do without it.

Running would probably help. Running was always a reliable fallback for things she didn’t want to think too much about.

She was halfway down the front steps when Derek called her name. She turned back. Derek was leaning in the busted doorway, shoulder against the jamb and one hand in the pocket of his jeans. With the other, he tossed something in her direction. She caught it by reflex.

It was her headphones, neatly wrapped up.

When Allison looked up again, Derek was gone. She huffed and shook her head; of course he would make a dramatic exit. She couldn’t blame him for it though; she didn’t know what to say to him either, and he had somewhere else to be. She did have to wonder if this would be the last time she would ever see him, but she couldn’t help but think he would be back.

No one ever seemed to stay gone from this place for long. The flash of blonde hiding in the trees told her that.

With one last look at the ramshackle house, now empty and quiet, Allison plugged her headphones back in, turned her music up, and ran.

**Author's Note:**

> [also on tumblr](http://clotpolesonly.tumblr.com/post/176588221426/she-had-seen-the-question-on-scotts-face)


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